


The Hanged Man

by EvilRobotCat



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 20:43:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17905301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilRobotCat/pseuds/EvilRobotCat
Summary: Reeve couldn't allow the idea of the goddess into his heart.  He was sure the moment he did, his soul would be bound to eternal punishment for the things he had done.





	The Hanged Man

Midgar. Quiet and dark, but unmistakable in starlight.  Unmistakable to Reeve, at least.  He knew this city as any loving parent knew their own child.  Every street and building had crossed his desk at conception.  Even the Honeybee far below bore his stamp of approval, though almost everything else in the slums had grown up wild.  It made him all the fonder.  
  
_Tell me of the Honeybee._  
  
"It was built when the beams went up," Reeve murmured absently.  His eyes were on the pavement beneath his feet.  Far below was the love hotel in question.  "For the construction crews' entertainment.  To keep them off the streets of Old Midgar after hours.  I was against it at first, but President Shinra insisted."  
  
Reeve cracked a smile, nostalgic and sad.  
  
"I was so young then.  There was much I didn't understand about the world."  
  
_But he made you understand._  
  
"Yes."  Reeve's half smile became bitter and faded away.  He had no regrets.  He wouldn't allow himself to.  His obedience had been rewarded - his city was built, and then some.  Shinra gave him fame, wealth, a seat in the boardroom of the most powerful company on the planet.  Perks he hadn't been interested in, but which served him well to his ends.  The people of the city had needed him.  
  
_You weren't their keeper._  
  
"But they needed me all the same.  Shinra didn't care if they lived or died as long as their bills were paid.  Someone had to make sure their homes were safe to live in and their streets were safe to drive on.  Especially in those last few years before the fall.  He would have let the whole city burn."  
  
Only half in control of his body, Reeve took a few steps forward.  He stood in the middle of the street.  There was no danger here.  No cars would come.  He was the sole resident of the city now.  
  
_Are you?_  
  
"This is just a dream," Reeve protested.  He knew what came next, but he could fight the inevitable for a moment at least.  
  
_A dream?  Then fill the street with people.  Show me life._  
  
As if he could refuse.  
  
Reeve turned his head to the left.  That building...  ah yes.  A restaurant.  The food was nothing special, but people came for the atmosphere.  Families with children mostly.  The whole sector was a mix of residential and light commercial zones.  
  
Warm light shone in the windows of the restaurant now, and the pleasant din of music and a dozen conversations drifted into the air.  Despite his resistance, Reeve smiled at the bustling scene.  A couple exited the restaurant only to stop at the picture window next door.  A clothing store - an upscale brand, at that.  The man complained.  A single scarf cost what he made in a week.  But the woman was already pulling him into the shiny gold doorway, greeted by smiling salespeople.  They would happily pry every last gil from the man's wallet, and he'd be helpless in the face of his lover's gleeful pleading.  
  
Reeve exhaled through his nose and shook his head admiringly.  They leaned close to each other.  No, they- Reeve's jaw tensed.    
  
Next to the first shop was another; a hip clothier that catered to executives' rebellious offspring.  Beyond that a jeweler that specialized in engagement rings adorned with gem-cut materia.  Utterly useless for casting spells, these materia rings were expensive and a necessity for trendy couples.  Someday the unfortunate young man from the clothing store would stumble into the jeweler's alone, hat in hand to ask about pay installments for a ring to show his beloved.  Fire materia most likely, to symbolize their passion for each other.  Last year it was earth materia, after a popular actress flashed her brand new wedding ring before the cameras.  She'd already divorced and remarried, just in time to announce her upcoming movie.  
  
_Did you see the movie?_  
  
Reeve raised his eyebrows.  "Do you want to?"  
  
_No._  
  
"I'm afraid I wasn't able to," Reeve confessed.  "There was never time to sit down and watch a movie.  I wish I had now."  
  
The people before him began to- Reeve quickly looked away.  His feet carried him past the theater and kept walking.  A show must have just let out, because he found himself suddenly surrounded by shrieking tweens and their long-suffering parents and older siblings.  It must have been that badly-written romance film starring the breakaway "hot one" from a boy band.    
  
_So energetic._  
  
Reeve nodded in agreement.  He'd been a somber child and an even duller teenager, but he liked to imagine any children of his would behave more like Cait Sith.    
  
"Aren't you going to ask me about _that?"_ Reeve tested hopefully.  "No, that's not your department, is it?"  
  
The crowd shifted around him and Reeve felt his stomach turn.  It was impossible to avoid their touch this time.  
  
_Show me more of your city._  
  
With a face that hinted at a sour flavor Reeve pressed on.  A high rise apartment, a prestigious school, a franchised drive-thru, more shops.  Every location was a permanent monument in his memory.  This was life before Meteorfall.  Life built on mako power, the cleanest and safest energy in the world. Life built on a lie.  
  
Everywhere Reeve passed the music and voices faded, washed away by the sound of sand in the wind.  The land surrounding Midgar had become a desert shortly after the reactors were completed.  In the outskirts of the slums it was possible to hear the waves of wind on sand, sometimes to see dust devils polishing away the edges of what had once been Reeve's pride and joy.  The sound didn't belong in the heart of the city.    
  
_It was never sand, Reeve._  
  
"It's truly empty, isn't it?" Reeve sighed.  "All those people..."  
  
_They're all dead._  
  
"You?"  
  
_I merely guided them with your help._  
  
Reeve looked down the stretch of the road, where he hadn't yet walked.  He should see the wall of the plate before him, rising higher than skyscrapers.  Instead he saw the empty desert and the cliffs beyond it.  There was nothing but air under his feet.  Of course, this plate had been bombed by Avalanche and Shinra.  And behind him, where he'd built up the fantasy of a vibrant city block-    
  
The flow of sand closed in around him now.  A mass of black particles, a cloud of oblivion.  It wasn't sand after all.  Reeve let it enfold him.  Perhaps now...  
  
_Not yet._  
  
Reeve opened his eyes with a start.  He was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling.  The lamp was on.  He looked down and saw a garish metal gauntlet caressing his chest, like some kind of mechanical nightmare preparing to rip out his heart.  The sight brought him comfort.  
  
"I'm sorry, I drifted off," Reeve said to the gauntlet's owner.  
  
"I enjoyed the view," Chaos praised.  His quiet smile, ever that of a hungry predator, seemed almost serene.  Sated.    
  
Reeve averted his eyes.  Chaos claimed himself unable to read minds, but a soul was an open book to him.  Of course he had followed Reeve into his subconsciousness and witnessed those...  visions.  All of them, men, women, and children stumbling around like possessed dead, their bodies consumed by geostigma.  And who had given life to their bodies, made them look if only for a moment, like human beings once again?  What sick monster could-  
  
"It was only a dream," Reeve muttered.  
  
The dangerous glint returned to Chaos' eyed and he stroked Reeve's chest.  
  
"You're not given to religion, are you?" Chaos inquired.  He already knew the answer.  
  
Reeve shook his head with a subdued laugh.    
  
"I wouldn't be in bed with you if I were."  
  
"Shouldn't it make you a devotee to see a Weapon and know the ancient legends are true?  Then wouldn't your affection be an act of virtue?"  
  
Reeve was silent, more interested in savoring Chaos' touch than his words.  
  
"Suppose one reason you lie safe in my arms is your use to the planet."  
  
"I hardly see what that is," Reeve snorted.  His eyes closed and he eased back into the mattress to expose more of himself to Chaos.  
  
"Countless souls wander in the miasma of the scourge, so desperate to survive they don't realize they're dead."  Golden claws tightened against Reeve's chest, enough to dig into his flesh.  "You lead me through a maze I can't navigate.  Through you I find them to cleanse and send to her."    
  
"Not the goddess!"  Reeve's laugh was not so much jovial as forceful.  He didn't want to think about the dream anymore; the things he had seen, what he had possibly _done_ to create those momentary visions of life.  "Chaos, don't tell me you believe in that, too!"    
  
"You summon the gods with harnessed mako and yet you doubt Minerva's existence?"  

As far as modern scholars knew, the goddess had no name, and yet Chaos insisted on this one.  Where had it come from?    
  
"Yes, but-" Reeve cringed as the gold tips dug deeper.  "She's only a fairy tale.  The will of the planet is an abstract concept we use to justify facets of nature and physics we don't understand yet.  The goddess is just a pretty face to-"  
  
Reeve's words cut off with a groan as Chaos' lethal fingertips pierced skin and sought deeper territory.  The Weapon's efforts were met with a helpless whimper.  
  
"How shall I reward this heresy?" Chaos taunted, tugging downward.  
  
"With mercy, I hope," Reeve pleaded through a faint smile.  
  
Chaos pressed his mouth to Reeve's.  One kiss fed into another, then to lips over Reeve's shoulder, and teeth too sharp for mercy.  Reeve shuddered in Chaos' grip and placed trembling hands against his arm and chest.  After an uncertain pause between them his hands clung firmer, pulled on Chaos to hurry him closer.  There would be no more talk of the goddess or the nature of the planet tonight.  No more talk of Reeve's 'use', whatever that could be. 

Surely it wasn't...    
  
It couldn't be... 

**Author's Note:**

> Several years ago I discussed this story with a friend, and how much I wanted to write it someday. The words finally came to me tonight. 
> 
> Regarding the title - I've always associated The Hanged Man with Vincent, but it seems to fit this piece well. Reeve has condemned himself in his mind and even sees his penance as a crime. (If you came here from the splash picture, you see why the title was "reversed".) On the other hand Chaos uses Reeve's Inspiration to locate souls still corrupted by Jenova and guide them back into the Lifestream, finally freeing them. Together they're both sides of the card.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it. ^^;


End file.
